Lincoln

The Ambiguous Icon

Steven Johnston

The judgment that Abraham Lincoln is the finest president in the history of the United States borders on self-evident. This status tends to disable the very possibility of a more critical understanding or appreciation, one that does not work, explicitly or implicitly, within the taken-for-granted frame of his greatness.

Still, America is not blind to or ignorant of Lincoln’s shortcomings. Rather it is in part because of these shortcomings that Lincoln is revered. Thus, if the country needs to legitimize a problematic course of action, it is Lincoln to whom it turns. Lincoln, America reminds itself, suspended habeas corpus; jailed political opponents; suppressed speech; held racist views; and pursued racist policies. The Lincoln that America “idealizes” is a thoroughly ambiguous figure. Simultaneously, the country tends to downplay or conveniently overlook the underside of Lincoln, part of a larger political pattern in which it proclaims its exceptionalism while indulging the very worst as it conducts its political affairs. It is time to take Lincoln’s ambiguity seriously, which might put America in position to recognize that one reason it routinely falls short of its democratic principles and commitments is that it may not, just like Lincoln, fully believe in them.In Lincoln: The Ambiguous Icon, Steven Johnston explores Lincoln’s complicated political thought and practice, reinterpreting the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural, and some of the many manifestations of Lincoln in film, monuments, and memorials that conceal—but also reveal—the terrible ambiguity of this marginally understood American figure.« lessmore »

Steven Johnston holds the Maxwell Endowed Chair at the University of Utah, Department of Political Science.

"Steven Johnston’s book on Lincoln is like no other. Lincoln biographies, speeches, four films, several memorials, the Gettysburg Address and more illustrate the fundamental ambiguity at the core of Lincoln’s legacy. Johnston’s Lincoln demonstrates the tragic contradictions generated by democracy’s slippery foothold in our national story."— Lori Marso, Union College

“Abraham Lincoln is an icon of ambiguity because iconicity is itself tragic. The political, religious, and aesthetic history of the icon shows this: at once disparaged and chastised for its moral turpitude it is all the while embraced and exalted for its political powers of glory. Steven Johnston’s brilliant and discomforting engagement with the iconicity of Lincoln affronts all of us with this tragic element of our aesthetics and politics; witness Thomas Ball’s Freedmen’s Memorial to Lincoln, the Gettysburg address, the Second Inaugural. Johnston collects and connects all these objects of iconicity to create an ethos of ambiguity for democratic life that holds no promise of redemption or overcoming. More than this, Johnston recollects these and other historical traces of American iconophilia forcing his readers to confront the accursed parts of America’s tragic forgetfulness. As much a book about the slippages of our historical memories as it is a book about Abraham Lincoln, Johnston has given us a genealogy of American moralism from which we cannot turn away.”— Davide Panagia, Professor of Political Science, UCLA

"Lincoln is a tour de force. Johnston offers a complex portrait of Lincoln and the nation that resonates eerily into the present. At once a work of political theory and democratic criticism, Johnston’s claim that Lincoln’s constitutive ambiguity as both a defender of the Constitution and its chief violator, a defender of emancipation and a leader who stifled dissent, one who upheld white privilege and justified colonization, is well-written and lively. Weaving together Lincoln’s writings, scholars from across disciplines, popular films, and monuments, Johnston examines the representations of Lincoln through attention to the democratic potential and tragic aspects of slavery, race, the treatment of American Indians, colonization, dissent, and political sovereignty. This book reframes the American promise of equal liberty in how we remember Lincoln."— Laurie E. Naranch, Siena College

Lincoln

The Ambiguous Icon

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Summary

Summary

The judgment that Abraham Lincoln is the finest president in the history of the United States borders on self-evident. This status tends to disable the very possibility of a more critical understanding or appreciation, one that does not work, explicitly or implicitly, within the taken-for-granted frame of his greatness.

Still, America is not blind to or ignorant of Lincoln’s shortcomings. Rather it is in part because of these shortcomings that Lincoln is revered. Thus, if the country needs to legitimize a problematic course of action, it is Lincoln to whom it turns. Lincoln, America reminds itself, suspended habeas corpus; jailed political opponents; suppressed speech; held racist views; and pursued racist policies. The Lincoln that America “idealizes” is a thoroughly ambiguous figure. Simultaneously, the country tends to downplay or conveniently overlook the underside of Lincoln, part of a larger political pattern in which it proclaims its exceptionalism while indulging the very worst as it conducts its political affairs. It is time to take Lincoln’s ambiguity seriously, which might put America in position to recognize that one reason it routinely falls short of its democratic principles and commitments is that it may not, just like Lincoln, fully believe in them.In Lincoln: The Ambiguous Icon, Steven Johnston explores Lincoln’s complicated political thought and practice, reinterpreting the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural, and some of the many manifestations of Lincoln in film, monuments, and memorials that conceal—but also reveal—the terrible ambiguity of this marginally understood American figure.

Steven Johnston holds the Maxwell Endowed Chair at the University of Utah, Department of Political Science.

Reviews

Reviews

"Steven Johnston’s book on Lincoln is like no other. Lincoln biographies, speeches, four films, several memorials, the Gettysburg Address and more illustrate the fundamental ambiguity at the core of Lincoln’s legacy. Johnston’s Lincoln demonstrates the tragic contradictions generated by democracy’s slippery foothold in our national story."— Lori Marso, Union College

“Abraham Lincoln is an icon of ambiguity because iconicity is itself tragic. The political, religious, and aesthetic history of the icon shows this: at once disparaged and chastised for its moral turpitude it is all the while embraced and exalted for its political powers of glory. Steven Johnston’s brilliant and discomforting engagement with the iconicity of Lincoln affronts all of us with this tragic element of our aesthetics and politics; witness Thomas Ball’s Freedmen’s Memorial to Lincoln, the Gettysburg address, the Second Inaugural. Johnston collects and connects all these objects of iconicity to create an ethos of ambiguity for democratic life that holds no promise of redemption or overcoming. More than this, Johnston recollects these and other historical traces of American iconophilia forcing his readers to confront the accursed parts of America’s tragic forgetfulness. As much a book about the slippages of our historical memories as it is a book about Abraham Lincoln, Johnston has given us a genealogy of American moralism from which we cannot turn away.”— Davide Panagia, Professor of Political Science, UCLA

"Lincoln is a tour de force. Johnston offers a complex portrait of Lincoln and the nation that resonates eerily into the present. At once a work of political theory and democratic criticism, Johnston’s claim that Lincoln’s constitutive ambiguity as both a defender of the Constitution and its chief violator, a defender of emancipation and a leader who stifled dissent, one who upheld white privilege and justified colonization, is well-written and lively. Weaving together Lincoln’s writings, scholars from across disciplines, popular films, and monuments, Johnston examines the representations of Lincoln through attention to the democratic potential and tragic aspects of slavery, race, the treatment of American Indians, colonization, dissent, and political sovereignty. This book reframes the American promise of equal liberty in how we remember Lincoln."— Laurie E. Naranch, Siena College